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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22838107">the things that i can</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>ripples [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Magic and Science</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:00:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22838107</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ancient One does not hide what she has seen of Parker. She lets it come. Or, a universe where Peter is not bitten, but still extraordinary all the same.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>ripples [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1032564</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the things that i can</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>the time stuff was written before endgame and is most likely not endgame-compliant. no time travel, which does wonders for my confused brain! thank you for reading.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time, the Ancient One imagines, is a string. The string was originally a ball - a singularity that chose the right time to blossom - galaxies thrown this way, energy and star stuff and time itself thrown another. It happened again and again - doubly so, triple so, infinitely times so. Then somehow, it righted itself. But beneath all of that, she knows, from cataloging the ends of the universe with her own truth, is something different. Another energy that lingers beneath nebulas and colliding galaxies and exploding stars.</p><p> </p><p>People have tried to ascribe meaning - words - language to this. She’s seen it all - people have a tendency to try to force the ambiguous into sharp corners or round symbols. But they haven’t got it, not yet. People have come close - she hears whispers of other universes and karma and something unexplainable when it cannot be puzzled out.</p><p> </p><p>But most of the time, people say <em>  magic </em>  and scoff. People say <em>  time travel </em>and think of a harebrained professor and Marty McFly. The thought of other universes bring up Inception or the Matrix or whatever pop culture thing is relevant. She’s stopped keeping track. It isn’t that - not really.</p><p> </p><p>Nowadays, the Ancient One thinks that people have adapted to the chance of impossibility. They have changed, and yet they haven’t - they shift and wiggle into the box they’ve created and widen it a little to accommodate. It’s interesting. But disappointing.</p><p> </p><p>The energy she uses - all of them use - is but a layer that cradles Earth away from the unknown. The Ancient One takes it into stride and fits it in her own box. Eventually, she faces an unsolvable problem and the thought is double-edged when it comes to her.</p><p> </p><p>She was once a student herself. Her earliest recollections of the mystic arts are mumblings of the Dark Dimension and its danger. The way it reaches for you, lapping at you until you cannot claw your way out. They warned her that no one survived that without a corrupted soul.</p><p> </p><p>She tells herself she will be responsible and with her own standards, she does what she needs to do. It feels like a lie.</p><p> </p><p>The Ancient One is intimate with her own death. It will happen when soldiers arise from the dead and gods bring unbounded power and golden knights bring their lives closer to death by the day. It will happen when a biochemist and a linguist leave their only son for what they think is the greater good. Their last known coordinates, when SHIELD investigates, will yield a hollowed out aircraft and nothing else.</p><p> </p><p>The aunt will become a widow and a mother and the son will become -</p><p> </p><p>He is too young, by all standards. Younger than her students, younger than <em>  her,</em> though, really, it seems that everyone is younger and brighter than her. She knows she is an enigma to her students. She hides herself well in her box, taking on titles and weaving them into what she thinks to be herself. <em>  Ancient One, Sorceress Supreme - </em></p><p> </p><p>He is too young and too malleable - the Ancient One does not think of Kaecilius’ blackened heart. She won’t. She can’t.</p><p> </p><p>So she hides it.</p><p> </p><p>She hides until Wong, back from the New York Sanctum, holds an obituary and a doubt. She sees the aunt’s name. She sees her name and thinks about how tragedy has framed plays and poetry and prose - but for him, it will be his undoing. He is fourteen and ten months.</p><p> </p><p>There is a single moment where the Ancient One considers breaking away from what she has seen. It would be easy to form a single knot in time and pretend it can be smoothed away. It would be easy to watch for years - watch the son grow up into something that is not what she sees.</p><p> </p><p>She thinks of the Dark Dimension settling in a permanent place in her soul, curling up, and she can’t.</p><p> </p><p>The Ancient One does not hide what she has seen of Parker. She sets it free, and the string from that first yarn ball tumbles into motion once again.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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